The only thing I don't like is that the front and side are very smooth, but then the back is an absolute mess.

Why is the back so dramatic compared to the rest?

And I doubt many people are cross shopping Mustangs and Focus...uhm... Focuses... Foci?

 

That's still the concept car, but I imagine it's gotta be pretty close to production.

The last generation Focus RS (Euro only) had some nice body lines

In either case i'm holding out to 2012 to see what the Focus and Fiesta ST (SVT?) versions are going to offer. I really want one of these little hatches as a daily.

 

Whoa, hold up... They're not putting the Revoknuckle geometry on it?

 

from a quick google its saying you probably couldn't drive it or if you could you wouldn't want to, think it'll be in there.

 

I know of it, and I know what the result of it is, but would you mind explaining what it is a little better? What is it that it does to perform the way it does.

 

They've effectively moved the kingpin axis out farther toward the wheel centerline than is usually possible with a MacPherson strut setup, which creates less driveshaft reaction torque about the wheel centerline. The larger that distance, the worse torque steer becomes on a FWD car because the drive torque acts mostly about the kingpin axis. It also decreases the scrub radius I'm pretty sure, or at least I'd intuitively think it would.

It's actually elegantly simple and is supposed to work really well according to those European types who get all of the cool Ford products. Renault has their own version too IIRC, but it's called something completely different.

Edit: I guess it's worth explaining that how they do it is to use a separate set of pivots (mounted on the strut) for the hub to turn on, instead of the standard MacPherson method of rotating the lower balljoint and the top of the strut. So the strut has the steering axis mounted to it, but it doesn't become a rotating part of the steering axis. So it's actually almost more like a double wishbone setup than a strut setup, because the strut doesn't rotate even though the strut still acts like a structural member. I'm still trying to think of a decent way to describe it without throwing away the important differences.

I can't remember how they locate the bottom of the strut to keep if from rotating, but that's not really very difficult if you use something other than a balljoint. The hub pivots on roller bearings or something like that I think, because it doesn't need any other degrees of freedom.

It's pretty cool to think about, and it really is a simple concept when you strip away the nuances of the geometry.

/nerd dump

 

Found a picture. I'm not sure what's going on at the bottom with the location of the strut to the lower control arm, but it looks like a ball joint. That can't be right, unless they've added a camber link to keep the strut from rotating. Or there's something important that is just out of sight in the picture or is missing from that assembly view.

 

Oh, much better picture. This one actually tells a story. And that is very clearly not a balljoint locating the bottom of the strut.

 

All I want to know is if I can run some 15x10 BBS LMs with a 195 series

I don't really care about handling...

 

Ok, that was perfectly timed. LOL..